These terms apply to all digger hire and earthworks carried out by Hot Diggety. By confirming a booking with us (including by text or email), you agree to them. They’re written in plain English. If anything is unclear, just ask.
Nothing in these terms limits your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, the Fair Trading Act 1986, or our duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, where those laws apply.
1. Underground services & site conditions
What we do:
- Where the job calls for it, get a beforeUdig plan for the work area before digging. We’ll also look at the council maps for water and drainage.
- Look over the site for meter boxes, the water toby, covers, pits, poles, old trench lines and anything else that hints at a service underneath.
- Treat every service as live, and hand-dig a test hole (pothole) wherever one is marked or likely to run, say from the toby to the house, before the digger works nearby.
- Stop work and talk to you if we find anything unexpected.
What we need from you (the client / property owner):
- Tell us about, and where possible mark out, all private services on the property that you know of or could reasonably find out about. Examples include power, gas, water, wastewater, stormwater, irrigation, garden lighting, septic systems, and data or power cables to outbuildings. beforeUdig and council plans leave these out. If you have as-built drawings, please share them with us.
- Arrange a private service locator if you’re unsure where private services run, or if we recommend one.
- Tell us about any other hidden hazards you know of, such as old foundations, buried tanks, asbestos, contaminated soil or buried rubbish.
About service plans: beforeUdig and council plans give a rough picture. Pipes and cables often sit metres from where they’re drawn, and some network owners never send plans at all. You can pay a private service locator to mark exact positions before we start. A beforeUdig request costs nothing. Some network owners charge a locator fee to mark their services on site, and we’ll agree that with you before anyone is booked.
Responsibility for damage: As long as we’ve followed the steps above, we aren’t responsible for damage to an underground service, or for the costs or delays that follow, where the service:
- was not shown on the plans provided, or was not disclosed or marked out; or
- was shown or marked in the wrong place, or was laid at an unusually shallow depth or without protection;
In those cases the property owner pays for repairs. Damage caused by our own carelessness is ours to fix.
2. Pricing & run time
- Digger and operator time is charged by the hours recorded on the machine’s hour meter while it is running. You don’t pay for breaks or idle time.
- The minimum charge for any job is $100 delivery to site plus 2 hours of machine hire. After the first 2 hours, extra hour meter time is charged in quarter-hour increments.
- Any other charges, such as tipper truck loads, tip fees, attachments or materials, will be agreed with you before the work starts.
- Any quote or estimate is based on the information and photos you give us. Hidden obstacles such as rock, buried concrete or unexpected services can increase the time needed. We’ll let you know as soon as we can if this happens.
- Payment is due by the date shown on your invoice.
3. Site access & ground conditions
- Please give us an accurate idea of access widths, slopes and steps. Our smallest machine needs at least 800mm of clear width and 2300mm of headroom, or 1700mm by special arrangement with the canopy removed. The 2.5 tonne excavator needs more than 1500mm of width and 2500mm of headroom.
- Please move vehicles, pot plants, outdoor furniture and anything else in the way before we arrive.
- Tracked machines can leave marks on lawns, soft ground and some paved surfaces. We use boards where we can. Some marking of lawns and soft ground is normal, and we don’t pay for repairs to it.
- If we agree to leave the machine on site between work days, please keep children and pets away from it and don’t let anyone try to operate it.
4. Consents & boundaries
- You are responsible for any building or resource consents the work needs, and for confirming property boundaries and the position of any work you ask us to do.
- For retaining walls, check with your council or designer whether consent or engineering is required. Walls over a certain height, or walls supporting a surcharge such as a driveway or building, usually need it.
5. Weather, rescheduling & safety
- If weather or ground conditions make digging unsafe or likely to cause damage, we’ll reschedule with you at no charge.
- Please give us as much notice as possible if you need to change or cancel your booking.
- We may stop work at any time if we believe it is unsafe to continue.
6. Dirt & spoil
- Unless agreed otherwise, excavated material stays on site where you ask us to put it.
- Removal by tipper truck, and any tip fees, will be charged as agreed with you.
7. Questions
If you have a question or a concern about our work, please call or text us on 021 895516 or email enquiries@hotdiggety.nz. We’ll always try to put things right.